The Malice Box

by Martin Langfield

  Terri shouted into the Quad: ‘Adam?’

  ‘Terri. We can still bring the baby back.’

  ‘You can have me. I’ll come. I want to be with you. And you can have the rest of what you want. Just give Katherine back to Robert.’

  Silence. Then Adam’s voice: ‘Go there now. I’ll come when you are there.’

  As they walked north along the tree-lined promenade of the Mall, Horace talked about the obelisk.

  ‘It’s a twin,’ Horace said. ‘They both stood at Heliopolis, which the ancient Egyptians called Iwnw, 3,500 years ago. A sacred city. Sacred to both the Perfect Light and our enemy, the Brotherhood, who take their name from it.’

  Robert had not made the connection until now.

  ‘The missing twin is in London, where it is also known as Cleopatra’s Needle,’ Horace continued. ‘Though both were erected well before her time.’

  ‘Wait, Horace,’ Robert said. ‘You talk about myths all over the world echoing the battles between the Iwnw and the Perfect Light. Was this obelisk standing at Iwnw when this all began?’

  ‘No, it came much later. It was raised in what historians now call the New Kingdom. The history of the battle for control of the Pathgoes back much further, and not just to Ancient Egypt.’

  ‘Tell me. I want to understand.’

  Horace reflected for a moment, then began. ‘The Path has existed for as long as there have been human beings. It is, simply, a way of seeing ourselves as we truly are – intimately connected to the rest of the universe, to a great consciousness that is the mind of the universe itself. All human beings are capable of ascending the Path and achieving full awareness of this, and in doing so experiencing how mind, matter and energy are all one, in constant transformation from one form to another.’

  ‘But you’ve said barely thirty people in the world know the secrets of red gold, for example,’ Robert objected.

  ‘All are capable,’ Horace said. ‘But few choose to walk the Path beyond its first steps. It is arduous in the extreme – even for those who are not undergoing the remarkable forced awakening that we have imposed upon you.’

  Robert turned to Terri, who was walking with her arms held across her stomach, her staff tightly gripped in one hand.

  ‘You said you follow the Path of Tiresias. I am on the Path of Seth. How many are there?’

  Terri said nothing, lost in her inner thoughts. He sensed she was praying for Adam.

  ‘There are as many ways to approach the Path as there are individual candidates,’ Horace replied. ‘But there are perhaps a dozen categories of similar approaches. That of Sethis reserved for very few.’

  ‘Do the Iwnw follow the same Path?’

  ‘They do. There is only one. But they inhabit its shadow side, and they seek to use the Path to wield power over others. They seek to rule. We do not. Once we were the same. We are all of the same kind. We all hear the higher harmonies, see the colours of soul states, can sometimes see beyond time and space. Everywhere in the world where the Path was known, however, there came a split. A scission. One was at Iwnw. But there were others. In China. In southern India. Among the Celts.’

  Robert reflected on Horace’s words, trying to fit his own experiences on to the story he was hearing. The trials had shown him a shadow side to the Path’s powers. When he had been most strongly drawn to the shadows, the Iwnw had succeeded in infiltrating his consciousness.

  ‘The old men in business suits. The three white-haired men. Are they the Iwnw or just representatives? Priests?’

  ‘They are adepts who preferred to follow the shadow side of the Path, and who made themselves over to evil. They are the Iwnw in this world, a manifestation of the seething, hateful force that lives in the virtual world, yearning constantly to incarnate, seeking constant opportunity to seize on our fears, our anger, our pride.’

  ‘That’s what happened in the beginning? Some followers of the Path split away and sought earthly power?’

  ‘Everywhere it has been the same story,’ Horace said. ‘And constantly renewed. The powers of the Path are so great that it is very difficult to renounce self-advancement. One must cut away the ego entirely, which is like experiencing death.’

  They walked past the Naumberg Bandshell and down the steps into an arched underground walkway. Once-glorious Minton encaustic tiles, in faded symmetrical patterns of reds, yellows and blues, lined the passage, which brought them up to the broad sky and expansive sweep of Bethesda Terrace, the angel silhouetted against the scudding clouds.

  Still Robert had more questions. ‘What does the word “Iwnw” refer to, Horace?’

  ‘It means column, as you know, and refers to two things. First, to the creation of the world. The first island to emerge from the primeval sea of chaos was represented at Iwnw by a column, topped by a small pyramid shape.’

  ‘And what is the second thing?’

  ‘It refers to the Path. The column, in this sense, is the spinal column, linking our most primitive, raw nature at the bottom to our highest potential, our capacity for communion with all of creation, at the top. It represents our ascent when we follow the Path. The temples of Iwnw were places of great learning and spiritual attainment.’

  ‘You speak of the Path but not of God, Horace. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak of God.’

  ‘At the end of the Path – at the top of the column, which we may also visualize as a ladder, if that is easier – there is the experience of the divine,’ Horace said. ‘Some call it God and personalize it. Others experience only a teeming, endlessly pregnant void – the awareness of creation happening at every instant, everywhere. It is the same thing.’

  They broke right and then north, past the Boat-house Café and through the Ramble to Turtle Pond, guarded by a fierce statue of the Polish independence hero King Jagiello, swords crossed above his head before battle.

  The Romans had taken the obelisk from Heliopolis to Alexandria in 12 bc, Horace said as they walked. Then it wasn’t moved again till 1879, when it was prepared for shipment to New York after the local ruler gave it to America as a goodwill gift. To the great excitement of Freemasons at the time, items found under the pedestal when it was lifted in Alexandria included a stone carved in the form of a mason’s square; a trowel cemented to the limestone beneath, to show it had not been left there by accident; a stone of unusual whiteness; cubes finished, dressed or roughened in ways consistent with Masonic symbolism; and an aperture in one of the hidden stones in the shape of a diamond, taken to represent a gem known to Freemasons as the Master’s Jewel.

  ‘The Masons stumbled across the Path during the Crusades, when they were still calling themselves Templars,’ Horace said. ‘But most have retained little of the wisdom they once guarded.’

  They continued north into thick trees and then suddenly, sooner than he had expected above them to the right, Robert caught a glimpse of the seventy-foot obelisk, gleaming white in the sun. They looped further north to the steps leading up to the octagonal platform on which it stood and went up.

  ‘Horace,’ Terri asked, ‘what does it say on the obelisk?’

  Horace went to the south face. ‘My hieroglyphics are a little rusty, but I will read the main inscription, along the centre of the column. The outside ones on each side were added later by a subsequent pharaoh. He is the heavenly Horus, the powerful, glorious bull, beloved of Ra, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt. He made this monument for his father, Atum, Lord of Iwnw, erecting for him two great obelisks whose pyramidions are of fine gold. Iwnw… some illegible parts here… the son of Ra, Thutmose, may he live for ever. That would be Thutmose III, to be exact.’

  Terri smiled. Horace looked up at the top of the obelisk. ‘Imagine the sun hitting the gold at the top, what that must have looked like. It must have been spectacular.’ He pointed downtown. ‘All obelisks, all towers, all skyscrapers are the same thing. They are our desire to touch the sky, to know our incorporeal nature. They are rockets of the mind, of the spirit. Fireworks
that never burn out. They are the necessary partners to the sacred cave, the rock walls painted with our dreams, the ring around the hearth, the magic circle of stones. The lingam and the yoni. Straight line and curved.’

  Robert saw an aura of grey-blue light around the monument. Concentrating, he found he could bring it in and out of focus, and reduce or enhance its intensity. The violence of his earlier visual and aural impressions had been fading imperceptibly since they’d reached the obelisk.

  Terri sat down heavily on a bench. ‘Where the fuck is Adam?’

  ‘He will come when he is ready. I suspect he is attempting to build enoughstrengthto be able to mask some of his thoughts and actions, still, from the Iwnw, though perhaps it is too late to hope for that.’

  ‘No,’ Terri said. ‘It’s not too late.’ Now Terri stood up from her bench and paced in frustration. ‘Would you two just focus on nailing Adam when he gets here, please? Is there a way to do something to help him before I go with him?’

  ‘If Katherine is here, there may be a chance, while we still have the Malice Box. The major key,’ Horace said. ‘If he comes without the Iwnw. Without his minders. It may be that getting away from them is what’s taking him so long.’

  ‘ Tariq,’ Terri said.

  ‘The Minotaur, yes,’ Horace replied. ‘If he can somehow be released, or ejected, from Adam, the Iwnw’s link to Adam will be destroyed. It would also break the link to you, and their grip on your cell structure would be broken.’

  ‘What would it take?’

  ‘It may not be possible,’ Horace said. ‘But Katherine would have to try to talk to the man she betrayed right into hell.’

  They discussed alternative plans while they waited, voices lowered, throwing up mental shields as well as they could against the ears of the Iwnw. Robert found himself doing it naturally, without thinking about it or even knowing just how he did it.

  Yet still he felt nothing of the enlightenment, the wakened state, that he had expected to find at the end of the trials. All was confusion, a dark and inchoate mess.

  They each sat a third of the way around the obelisk, in a Y, and settled into their own thoughts.

  ‘Robert, you recall the hidden aperture found under the obelisk,’ Horace said. ‘There was no actual jewel there, but its shape represented one. The jewel represented the purified consciousness of one who walks the Path all the way to the end. Focus on the jewel now. I suggest we all meditate on that for a while. It will help you to prepare for the coming ordeal. I fear Adam may keep us waiting for quite some time.’

  Robert thought back to the black flint he had felt in his heart at Union Square after 9/11, when he’d been unable to believe that love alone could be enough to fight the hatred behind those attacks. Now he saw that love, and love alone, would be the only weapon with which he could defeat the Iwnw.

  ‘When I looked into the Malice Box,’ Robert said, ‘it seemed to flip back and forth between convex and concave, as if it were bothat once.’

  ‘Both and neither, simultaneously,’ Horace said. ‘Paradox is the language of the divine. In the same way, concentrate upon the absence of the jewel, until the jewel itself appears in your consciousness.’

  Robert held the empty jewel-shaped aperture in his mind and let all else float away. Time stopped and rushed by at once, and neither seemed real. He stared deep into the empty niche, until he became it himself: an empty niche, an empty vessel, an aching void, which slowly began to flip back and forth between empty and full, absence and the jewel.

  In search of himself, in search of understanding, Robert went in his mind to the place he had been happiest. Birdsong twittered and echoed all around him, rising into the leafy green heights of the copse in the grounds he had roamed as a child, the lands of the great house. Dappled green light played on his skin as he sat on the smooth stone, inviting the birdsong to permeate his senses as he played through in his mind all the mysteries of the world. He had never left there without a feeling of resolution. Now he lost himself in the melodious, carefree chirping of the language of the birds, and knew peace.

  Someone was coming. A twig snapped under a heavy boot and a comforting presence entered the copse, his strong and slow stride that of an outdoorsman, a man of nature. Robert smelled wet earth, rain in the air, damp leaves. It was his father. With a nod he came to sit beside Robert on the stone.

  They were silent, at ease in each other’s company, long used to the wordless ways they had of expressing their love. Grey-haired and ruddy, his hands gnarled but his great back strong from decades of work on the land, his father was as Robert remembered him best. Powerful and kind. Thoughtful, sparing of words.

  ‘You’ve always liked this place, eh?’

  Robert nodded. He felt no need to speak.

  ‘I’ve fetched you away from here a few times. Your mother did too. Whenever we didn’t know where to find you, this is where we’d come.’

  His deep brown eyes searched Robert’s, wanting to communicate something that words were unable to carry.

  ‘I’ve written a few things down for you,’ his father said, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a letter and held it out to his son, his hand trembling slightly. ‘Things you should know, in case you ever need them.’

  Robert reached out and took the letter. He recognized it as the one he had received at university, the one he had burned but still remembered in every word and syllable. Their eyes met, and Robert saw his father was troubled.

  ‘Your mother and I kept you away from these things,’ he said. ‘We knew of too muchdanger, too much wickedness that had come from messing with things we didn’t understand. Terrible things that happened, family stories… We decided you should be brought up differently, in a modern way. We wanted you to have opportunities we never had, that the old ways would never give you.’

  Robert realized that his father was apologizing to him. He was seeking Robert’s blessing for keeping him in ignorance of his gift.

  ‘Don’t ever say I gave you this,’ the old man said. ‘And when you have children, make sure you don’t hold them back with your own fears.’

  He held out his hand to Robert, man to man, and Robert took it, shaking it gently.

  ‘There’s nothing to be sorry for,’ he said to his father. ‘I wasn’t ready then. I am now. There’s nothing to forgive.’

  His father rose, wordlessly, and gave a final nod of goodbye. He walked out of the copse, leaving Robert alone with the harmonies of the singing birds, clear and crystalline like a perfect shining jewel.

  Robert opened his eyes. It was dark. Horace was nowhere to be seen. Terri was sitting with her weapon across her knees, alert, facing into the blackness.

  ‘Where have you been? It’s been hours,’ she said. ‘Welcome.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Robert replied.

  He heard a cough from behind the obelisk. ‘Actually, old man, I think she’s talking to me.’

  Adam stepped forward, followed by Katherine. Robert’s heart leaped, though she looked distraught, exhausted. Adam had Katherine’s pistol in his hand. He gestured with it as if it were a toy, then slipped it into his waistband.

  ‘I had to take this from Katherine. Useless little device among friends suchas ourselves, but still better in my hands. Sit still, Robert. Tearful reunions can wait for a minute or two longer.’

  Adam looked like a ghost, gaunt and deathly pale. He surveyed the area suspiciously. ‘Horace, come out, wherever you are. I can feel you.’

  There was no reply. Adam seemed to weigh his options, then reach a decision to go on. ‘Katherine, sit over there.’ He gestured to the bench where Terri sat. Robert felt Katherine was focused entirely on Adam and was sending him every last drop of strength she could muster.

  ‘Robert, now you too, please. Between the ladies.’

  Robert slowly got up and moved to the other bench. Katherine met his eyes with an expression of burning anger and fear. He tried to beam back at her his determination to protect her, to prot
ect them all.

  ‘What complicated webs we weave,’ Adam said, with an air of sadistic glee. He threw something at Robert’s feet. ‘Rickles, don’t say I don’t look out for you.’

  It was his wedding ring.

  Robert looked at Terri, then at Katherine. Neither acknowledged him. He slowly bent down and picked it up, but did not replace it on his finger. He slipped it into a pocket.

  ‘I’ll leave you to work out how exactly the reconciliation goes down,’ Adam said. ‘I asked Terri to steal it during your tryst, to help you along with the breaking-down part of the trials. It’s a brutal business, to be sure.’

  Adam seemed to have lost the last of his humanity, retaining only an air of bitter, defeated amusement.

  ‘Now, in exchange, give me the core, and the remaining keys you possess. Right now.’ Robert stood slowly up and took a bag containing the keys from his trouser pocket: the seventh and one part each from the fifth and the sixth.

  ‘Put the bag down there on the ground.’ He pointed to a spot between them. Robert stepped forward and put it down.

  ‘Step back.’

  Adam carefully bent and picked it up, keeping his eyes on Robert and the women behind him.

  ‘Now the core. The major key, the one that makes it all work. The little Malice Box that fits into the big Malice Box.’

  Terri stood up, setting aside her staff, and walked towards Adam. Then she took his hands. ‘Tell us something first.’

  The tension racking Adam’s body seemed to soften slightly, and he raised a hand to Terri’s face. ‘Oh, God, Terri. What?’

  ‘Tell us about Lawrence. And about the Iwnw. What they want.’

  Horace appeared out of the darkness behind Adam. ‘What about Lawrence, Adam?’

  Adam jumped, taken by surprise. Still Terri held his hands.

  ‘Tell it,’ Terri insisted. ‘Horace needs to hear it. Everyone needs to hear what they made you do. What you’ve had to bear. Please.’

  Adam stared at her, reluctant to begin. ‘It’s not a pleasant story,’ he said.

  ‘Please, Adam.’